Margot Gerritsen, a faculty member in the Department of Energy Resources Engineering at Stanford, admits that the population of the world is increasing at alarming rates and with that an ever increasing hunger of energy. Unfortunately, she believes that an awareness of energy issues, such as conservation,  in the public is severely lacking.  

With the creation of Smart Energy, she hopes to combat this problem by discussing new ideas and technologies from renewable sources like wind, solar, and tidal energy with the world's best scientists, engineers and policy makers, as well as the general media, and in turn, educating the public with her findings, data, and research.

It's obvious she's well on her way, and doing her great job! The Reef Tank hopes to take part.  We had the opportunity to ask Margot about her mission and how marine energy factors into it all. 

From potential doctor to...reefer? Well, not exactly.  But David Dobbs' knowledge in science, medicine, and neurology does come in pretty handy when he writes Neuron Culture, an environmental blog turned scientific because of Dobbs' background in medicine. And yet he freely writes on all topics to satiate his own curiousity.

But it's his articles and books on fisheries, reef genesis, and marine biology that really get our temperatures rising--and Dobbs is there to keep us waiting with bated breath for his next big thing.

Dobbs has already written two books that have become classics for The Reef Tank.  The Great Gulf, about fish populations, follows arguments about everything from fish regulations to counting fish, while Reef Madness, gives us the inside scoop on reef genesis. We can't get our hands off both. 

Acid Test is no Blue Planet, says Sarah Van Schagen, the editor who reported on the documentary playing on the Discovery Channel this month, over at Gristmill. 

She says the movie has a lot more green-screen technology than the Discovery Channel's Blue Planet series, also covering the ocean, which unfortunately means: a lot less live footage of the beautiful sailing seas. 

Perhaps Acid Test is a lot less positive, too.  After all, how can one speak merrily about the carbon dioxide build up that is happening in our oceans.  

Ocean acidification -- the ongoing decrease in the pH of the Earth's ocean caused by increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere)--may be a bigger problem than any of us realize!

Fortunately for us, we have the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory (PMEL) on our side. Scientists at PMEL carry out many types of investigations in the ocean and atmosphere. 

One program was of particular interest to us.   The Carbon Dioxide (CO2) program at PMEL, located in Seattle, Washington, researches the ocean carbon cycle in most major ocean basins.  Of course, that also includes the ocean's acidity level--a.k.a. ocean acidification.

Oceanographer Simone Alin is part of the PMEL CO2 group.  Her research focuses on how carbon dioxide dynamics affect coastal ecosystems, however she is also interested in how ecosystems are affected by issues like climate change and pollution. 

There are plenty of environmentally savvy scientists in the world, so what is it that makes Kenneth P. Green stand out from the rest? Could it be a focus on public policy? His constant attempts to raise awareness of environmental issues and the legislation that hopes to act on them?  Or his focus on climate change and energy, his work as a scholar for the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a public policy think tank, and his countless publications on the topic including magazine articles, newspaper columns, and even a textbook for middle school students on global warming.  

It's obvious that The Reef Tank can't pick just one item that makes Kenneth stand out because it's all of the above that has molded the environmental policy researcher into the important climate change education contributor he has become today.

Take a look at the great lengths Kenneth has gone to help spread awareness and change the world.

Discoblog is Discover magazine’s compendium of quirky, funny, and surprising science news from the edge of the known universe.  In an effort to promote marine news in a new unconventional style (and a fun one to boot), we’ve asked the writers of Discoblog, Discover’s deputy web editor Melissa Lafsky and Allison Bond , to come up with their own lineup of entertaining and enjoyable marine news, along with a few of their own past marine news blog pieces. 

Here’s what Allison ever so cleverly came up with.

What also remains constant, is his active research on freshwater climate adaptation, and his commentary on anthropogenic climate change and freshwater conservation and economic development trends.  

Sounds like the perfect candidate for a brain picking.  

Dr. Matthews is a climate change adaptation specialist, which is a rather interesting and unusual but important term, especially in these days of constant climate change issues and problems. He also supports the staff at the World Wildlife Federation on freshwater issues as part of the WWF Climate Adaptation Network.